My review of "Tietam Brown

I finished reading Tietem Brown (the novel by Mick Foley I mentioned a few posts ago) at the end of last week. I don't even know where to begin in describing it. The reviews on the back of the book gave hints that the book would be graphic and violent at parts but i didn't think much of it until I was reading the damn thing. And WOAH, Mr. Foley surprised me with the amount of SICK violence at parts of the book. It was all in such gruesome detail too. But the scary thing about it was, the character of Andy (the main character) who tended to perpetrate the violence, was so relatable to me.

Basically, Andy was just a nice kid with good intentions and a good heart who had tons of patience (like me) but then bad thing after bad thing would happen to him, and he'd let it roll off him until a line was crossed and then he'd just explode (kind of like what happens with me- it take a LOT to piss me off but then once I get to that point, you better look out). So as sick and gruesome as some of the things he did were, each of the recipients deserved it AND more (seriously, you need to read this book to see what I'm talking about).

Another thing is that a lot of critics pan Foley and don't take him seriously as a writer b/c he was a pro-wrestler, but damn the man can write. I mean i'll admit, the man does do some things in his writing that I'm sure "real" writers would frown upon (like breaking down the fourth wall to crack a joke) but you can't deny the appeal of his writing. He writes in a way that it's like he's sitting in front of you telling you a story. It's just so damn intriguing.

All the characters were really interesting and you just wind up caring so much for Andy's character. When he's nervous about asking the girl out, you feel his anxiety, when things wind up not working out with the girl you feel his heartbreak. When he's having issues with his dad, you feel his sadness and when he goes into his "rages" you feel his anger. And when Foley keeps throwing insane hardship after hardship at Andy all on top of each other, you just feel so bad for him that at times I found myself saying in my mind "What are you doing to this kid, Foley!?!? Let him catch a break!" Now I don't read a lot of books but damn if that's not the sign of some fine writing.

Another great thing about the book- the character of Andy's father. He's just such a complex character. You start off thinking he's an asshole, then as a whore, then as a guy who means well but just has a "unique" way of doing things, then as a hero, then as an utter asshole again, then someone to be extremely pitied, then as some sort of sick deprived maniac and at the end you don't know what to think of him b/c he just has so many layers. It was hard to tell whether you should pity him for what he's gone through (cuz Foley makes a point of the terrible things he had to deal with) but then some of things he does are SO utterly reprehensible that it's hard to have anything but hatred for this character. And I think that was the hook of the book- when is the point that a person you love hurts you so much that it's ok not to love them anymore?

In the end it was just a powerful and emotional read. I only wish it was longer (it was only about 240 pages and I went through the last 160 pages in like four hours b/c I couldn't put the book down). Do I recomend it? If you have a strong stomach, and can take reading a downer (although I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that there are some HYSTERICAL parts too) then yes I give it a very strong recomendation. I guarentee at the very least this book will make you think.

I should have just stayed home today...

Ok first off I just have to mention that I had this post completely finished but then it got accidentally erased before I could save it. And it's all because of my damn macintosh at work. Stupid macs!

But anyways... yeah I guess I should try to re-do the original post to the best of my memory...

So yeah on Friday I went to work and started to feel sick. It got progressively worse as the day went on but I still sucked it up and went to New Roc to see Blade: Trinity with Ariana, Sheila, Henry, Maryellen and Gaetano.

As for the movie itself, it was "ehh." The plot was nearly non-existant and the tiny bit of it the movie did have was kinda confusing, and some parts were just very cheesy (the part where Triple H is running after the Nightstalkers as they are speeding away in a car comes to mind).

Now granted the movie wasn't totally horrible. There were some decent fight scenes, Ryan Reynolds stole every scene he was in, and I will give props to Jessica Biel for not making me think of her as the "chick from 7th Heaven" throughout the movie. There were also a few funny lines in the movie, my favorite coming from Wesley Snipes himself:

Familiar: "I can't tell you! They'll kill me!"
Blade: "Kill you?!?! I'll f***ing kill you, Mother f***er!"

After the movie me and Ariana headed back to my place to chill but at that point my cold took a drastic turn for the worse and we realized what I had was actually the Flu.

Thus, I was COMPLETELY out of comission for all of Saturday. I was barely able to even sit up. The only times I actually left my room were to eat breakfast in the morning and dinner at night. It really freakin sucked.

I felt bad too b/c Rachael was leaving NY to go back to Florida this weekend and I was planning on going down to the city to see her to say goodbye but obviously I was in no condition to do so. So hopefully I will see her the next time she visits NY.

But yeah my weekend was pretty much shot. Thankfully I have an awesome girlfriend (that luckily had her flu shot) who stayed over and took care of me. It was also very nice to have the company, despite not being able to do much.

I felt a little better on Sunday, and I had a Final on Monday I needed to study for, so I forced myself to do that.

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While online on Sunday, Charles IMed me and told me about the WWE Raw house show he attended the previous weekend. He said the show itself was "ehh" but what happened afterwards was completely awesome.

Chris Jericho had announced during the show that he and his band Fozzy were playing at a small club nearby right after the show. So Charles and a friend decided to go and wound up standing front row center during the entire concert. What makes it even cooler was that at one point he said that Jericho even jumped into the crowd to start a moshpit and Charles got to mosh WITH Jericho, slamming into each other and everything. He also said he got to chat with Jericho a bit, clank beers with him and everything. The whole story made me quite jealous. But it's cool that he had that experience, especially out in Savannah, GA where it's nowhere near as lively as good ol' NYC.

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Watched Simpsons that night, and it was one of the funnier episodes as of late. There were a ton of great quotes throughout the entire episode. I don't remember them all but here were some that got me to laugh:

"That shirt is funny, smart and would cover my man-boobs nicely"- Nerd

"I like shirts with nice jokes on them like 'support our troops'- Marge

And 2 of the t-shirts shown in the episode that I got a kick out of- "Jews for Jebus" & "Scratchbin Itchpants"

The part with Bart realizing he was no longer a little kid anymore got me thinking as well. Especially when he was looking through his old toys like his etch-a-sketch, silly putty and boardgames. It reminded me of when I went through all my old stuff and even when I see some of it now in my closet. I tried to think of when I came to the same realization that Bart did, but I couldn't pinpoint any specific time or event. How about the rest of you?

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Baseball news!

Carl Pavano is about 99% sure going to the Yankees, which is really good for them. They've done a good job so far bolstering their bullpen and starting pitching (hopefully Wright will work out), and they're not done yet. Hopefully they can get Milton and even somehow manage to acquire Johnson. Now THAT would be a pitching staff. Add to that the possibility of getting guys like Tino Martinez (yes, he's not as awesome as he used to be but is still good and has HEART which is something the Yanks need an infusion of in a big way) and Carlos Beltran, then the Yankees will have a solid team (and this time they can truly be called a team to be feared b/c unlike last year they would have the pitching to back them up). So let's see how that plays out.

I do feel bad for the Marlins though. They already lost their great closer (Benitez) and now they've lost their best pitcher (Pavano). Plus, I'm hearing that Boston is looking to make a deal for A.J. Burnett and that is a blow I don't think the Marlins could take at the moment. So I'm hoping nothing happens with that.

Oh and I'd be remiss if I did not mention the whole Pedro to the Mets deal. I honestly couldn't care less. I'll miss Pedro being on the Red Sox b/c when he pitched against the Yanks, there was about an 85% chance the Bombers would win that game, lol. But other than that whatever, he's the National League's problem now. Although I must say, if the deal stays on course, the Mets will have quite a decent starting lineup with Pedro, Glavine, Zambrano, Benson and Traschel. They just have no bats to back that up... so I'm curious what will happen on that end.

And finally, David Wells to the Red Sox. This is a move that came out of NOWHERE. And it can be a dangerous one as well b/c Wells is still a very good pitcher despite his age and he can give the Yanks a run for their money. So they need to be careful with him.

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It was Ariana's b-day yesterday, but sadly she had both a presentation AND a final to deal with. We did hang out and go for dinner down in the city afterwards though. We wound up making the best of the night and wound up having a really nice time (and the food at the restaurant- we went to Terra, was really good as well). We will wind up celebrating her b-day at greater length once finals are over though.

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So back to the reason behind the title of today's post... I still wasn't 100% this morning but I went to work anyway. Well as I stated at the beginning, it was b/c of my mac at work that I lost this entire post but that wasn't the only thing. We went to the Middle school for the after school program as usual but I took the Ram Van with the students so I wouldn't have to take my car and waste gas. Well on the way back I was dropped off at the guard booth but I realized as soon as I got off the van that my palm pilot came off my belt clip and must've fallen out as I was exiting the van. I ran to catch up to it but by the time I got there the van was empty. I went to the RV office to explain what happened and the driver searched the van but nothing. I called my co-worker to ask if anyone found it and luckily he told me that he thought he overheard one of the tutors saying they found something. So I tried calling the tutors but got none of them so I left messages.

Breaking News: As I was writing this, one of the tutors called me back to tell me he had my palm pilot. Thank God! That was quite scary.

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This post is getting pretty long so I'll just wrap the rest up nice and quick.

-Ariana helped me win the set of Incredibles toys from ebay, so that was very cool.

-I bought Dragonball Z- Budokai 3 last week. I haven't had much time to play, what with finals to study for and me being sick, but what I have done so far has been a lot of fun.

And lastly I will leave you all with a quote from a woman I heard climbing the stairs out of the subway with her friends last night when I was out with Ariana:

"Stairs are the new stairmaster."

[I don't think there are words to describe how retarded that comment was. I had to try so hard to contain my laughter til they were out of earshot. Stupid people can be fun sometimes.]

Big catch-up Update

I realize I have not been updating this blog as much as usual lately. I've just been mad busy, what with school, an annual report and an audit at work, add in a dash of laziness and you have my excuse for not updating recently.

Thus, I have a lot to catch up on, so please bear with me.

First off, lots of people have been asking me how my mom's wedding went. It was pretty nice. It was a simple affair. No real wedding party, my mom didn't even wear a traditional wedding dress (she figured why waste the money). Basically my grandfather gave her away, our Pastor did the traditional wedding spiel and that was it. I was up in the front also but only to take pictures and stuff.

The reception was nice as well as she wound up having a HUGE turnout. i was happy for her that all her old friends showed up. The food they had catered (and made themselves) was also GREAT. I had to fight myself to not go for seconds as I am now in the process of trying to lose weight and cutdown the amount I eat. But yeah as for the wedding as a whole, I believe fun was had by all.

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I have continued to collect those Incredibles toys at McDonald's. I have 5 out of the 8, but sadly when i went this past Sunday to the McDy's near my grandparents, I saw that they had changed the toys to something new. So I was pretty bummed, i will now have to resort to ebay to finish my collection... oh well, I guess that's healthier, lol.

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Oh, I FINALLY got my hands on the ECW DVD (well i shouldn't say "finally" I wound up getting it that same weekend but I went through Hell to get it).

Basically, none of the Bestbuys or Circuit City's (or anywhere that would have it for a decent price) had it in stock after the first day, b/c like I mentioned in the previous post, all those places seriously underordered the product.

Luckily i found it on Bestbuy.com and so I ordered it and saw that it said it would be available in the Yonkers store for pick-up so I selected that option. Well the next day i get an e-mail stating they won't have it at the Yonkers store. So I called and they told me that they DID have it at the Mount Vernon store. So i told them to switch the pick-up to there. I had called Mount Vernon earlier in the day though and found out they only had gotten 20 copies though, so I was hoping the order would go through in time so they could hold me my reserved copy.

So anyways, after work I went up to the Mount Vernon Bestbuy, and my gut instinct was telling me "look for the DVD right away when u get for the store, even before you go to the online pick-up counter, b/c they may have put aside just the DVD itself and not the special edition that comes with the Rob Van Dam figure."

So i follow my gut and look for the DVD. It wasn't on the shelves so I ask one of the employees and they go to the back and bring me just the DVD. I ask if by any chance there is any with the figure also back there, and they went to check and they came back with one to give me. So i was psyched. I figured, if they did their job and my copy was on reserve in the back with the figure also, I would buy both, and Henry would buy the extra copy off me, since we are both huge ECW fans.

Well i get to the counter and i overhear someone else asking for the DVD and being told it's sold out. I offer up the copy of JUST the DVD i had to them, since I had no use for it (since I had the one with the figure). I then spoke to the cashier and she went to the back to get my DVD and lo and behold, it turns out they never put the item aside for me (THANK YOU GUT INSTINCT!) Luckily I had the last copy in my hands, so I just took that one. So I was a bit upset that I was SECONDS behind losing it to that person asking for it I saw at the counter even though it was rightfully mine as I ordered it. But then i was very happy that I actually got my copy and couldn't wait to watch it.

So the next night, me and Ariana did watch it (well the 1st disc which was the documentary part) and the sucker was like 3 and a half hours long, but by the end of it i still wanted more. It was just really well done. I can't wait to watch the second disc with the matches.

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On the subject of wrestling, I just have a small handful of things to mention.

First off, as I've stated before, sometimes Ariana says some hysterical stuff during wrestling bringing me back to the heydays of when me and Charles would watch it and just crack jokes on the show the entire time. Well last week she got me with another one that had me rolling. There was some stupid skit with the Big Show going on at Smackdown, and well recently he had his head shaved by Kurt Angle, so he's now sporting the "Steve Austin"-look (bald head, goatee). Thing is, he parted his fairly thick goatee at the chin. So Ariana pointed out that the two parts now look like testicles. And it's so true, with his bald head and the weirdly parted goatee, his head now looks like a penis. It's pretty freakin hilarious (and leads me to wonder if it was part of some backstage razzing by the other wrestlers b/c after having it pointed out to me, I realized it was pretty blatant). So yeah, that was highly amusing.

Next, was last week's Raw which as my favorite wrestling columnist dubbed "Orton is Nitro" since it was as bad as the last days of WCW Monday Nitro. Basically they've been running this gimmick where the members of the winning team at last month's Survivor Series each get a week to run the show. Last weeks was Orton's turn, and well his show SUCKED. Stupid angles, not so great matches, lame skits that made no sense. It was annoying to watch, yet I have to admit it brought a devilish grin to my face as it solidifies in my mind how much Orton sucks, and hopefully other people noticed that as well.

Luckily this week's Raw is JERICHO, was MUCH better, with really fun matches and a push by Edge in trying to become my new favorite wrestler. Basically the World title was vacated after the mess from last week and Edge came out to bitch that it was Orton's fault and he should have won the title. Then Orton came out and started to talk trash about how the only failure in the ring was Edge (while in my head I was all like "Hell no, Edge kicked Orton's ass all summer long even beating him for the Intercontinental title!")

Thankfully Edge's memory isn't as short term as most wrestling fan's memories are and he brought up that fact all like "How dare you come in here and look at me with those beady little eyes of yours (HA!) and talk about how evenly matched we are. I kicked your ass all summer long! i even ended your 8 month long IC title reign. (Hell yeah!) Your memory must be failing b/c it's a fact that when it comes to you and me... you're my BITCH! (Testify brother!)"

That last line was delievered with such intensity and conviction. I gotta tell you, it had me clapping and cheering in my room. They went on to brawl after that very last comment, and I loved every second of it. I hope Edge kicks his ass next week, it will put a huge ass grin on my face til the end of the year.

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Took the students from my two high schools on a college trip to Rutgers University last Wed. Sadly it poured that day, and my boss and co-workers pointed out to me that EVERY time I plan a trip it there is either a snow storm or heavy rains. My boss teased that I must call the meteorologist a month in advance to see when there is gonna be horrible weather and pick my trip for that exact day. I definitely didn't plan it, but it just seems to work out that way.

The trip turned out well though, and I even went the extra mile by going to Blockbuster the day before and renting Spider-Man 2 on VHS so we could watch on the bus ride. The students were pretty happy about that, so that was cool.

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My cable was gving me problems all last week. Some channels were just blank and they couldn't fix it by the computers over the phone or by me doing a manual "hard-reset." It was pretty annoying as it affected Channel 5, ESPN and Comedy Central, channels i watch fairly frequently. I had to have a technician come but they only make appointments in blocks like 9-12, 1-4, 2-5, etc. I chose 2-5pm on Friday since sometimes I get out early and also my mom gets home by 3:30 and cable people are usually notoriously late.

Well it figures that the ONE time i'm HOPING they are late they show up on time. I got a call at 2:20pm telling me they were in front of my house but no one was home so I had to reschedule. When i got home and called to reschedule they gave me a hard time and wouldn't give me an appointment for Saturday (the ONLY day I would be around all week as I had schoolwork to do). The helpdesk person was really annoying and I had to bitch them out and make a scene (which i don't really like to do) but in the end I got my way.

So it figures that when i wake up on Saturday morning, the cable is inexplicably working fine. I didn't cancel the appointment and the technician came anyway but couldn't find anything wrong, so it was kind of a waste. Luckily I got a credit for the near week of missing channels but it was still annoying.

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I haven't had too much free time lately, but with the little bit I do have, i've been playing Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. I've really gotten into it over the past two weeks. I'm currently just going around trying to earn more pieces of heart which is kind of annoying since the world is so large but other than that it's a lot of fun. I think I'm about halfway through the game, so hopefully I will have it beat before Christmas b/c like i said- then it's X-Men Legends time!

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And finally (last part of my blog, promise, lol). I just finished reading my latest Star Wars novel- The Approaching Storm. It was one of the ones that take place RIGHT before Episode II. It was really good and I enjoyed it a lot. I'm hoping more Clone Wars time-frame novels are made. Although in the meantime I have the Dark Horse Star Wars comics doing that and wow, i must say they are really well done... better than anything Lucas could even hope to DREAM of. You should really check them out.

But anyways, now that my Star Wars novel is done, I'm starting the fiction novel by Mick Foley- "Tietam Brown." I loved the 2 auto-biographies Foley wrote (some of the most hysterical reading put to print). So I'm hoping for good things from this book. I'll let you know how it is.

And with that I'm off, and will hopefully be able to update more often. Later!